.

Chapter 79

Grandmother?

Bella

"See you soon, my heart, and please drive carefully!"

"As usual!" I defiantly returned and hung up. Edward just didn't get tired of telling me that all the time. It was cute on the one hand, but it could also be quite annoying in the long run. Well. On that point Edward would probably never change.

I quickly put the things I had bought fresh for dinner in the fridge, put my back bag away, threw my purse around my body and drove off again.

I enjoyed driving the route on my motorcycle. As soon as I left the New County Road and just drove the narrow backroads, it was a feeling of freedom. That feeling abruptly faded when I saw the kids' Golf standing in front of the house.

Two words: 'Who?' and 'Why?' Because actually the two should be in school.

I greeted Esmé and Carlisle suspiciously as I put my jacket away in the hallway.

"What's the car doing here?" I asked immediately.

Both said nothing about it, when Edward was also already here. His eyes shone again in rich gold.

That's how I liked his eyes best, that's also how they had the greatest effect on me.

As if in a trance, I followed the color and forgot everything else around me. Only when I felt his lips on mine, a part of my brain switched on again. A rather small part. Only the necessary part to return the kiss just as intimately.

"It's good to have you back with me!" he whispered against my ear as he hugged me tightly.

He had explained it to me last time. Those nine or so hours we were apart every day felt longer to him when he was doing something else instead of sitting in school. But it had only been the second time today. Thanks to the weather.

After my breathing and my pulse rate had returned to some degree of normalcy, I finally asked which of the twins was here and why.

"Leah. She's upstairs waiting for you."

"What happened?" I asked immediately.

An alarm bell sounded loudly in my head. Upstairs. The only interesting room upstairs, reached by the very stairs Edward had come down, was the exam room.

"She's fine, Bella. Don't worry ... There is just a small irregularity, which must mean absolutely nothing," Edward immediately tried to reassure me, but he didn't really succeed.

Leah had been radiating an inner aggressiveness since yesterday when she got back from Becky's. Something was bothering her and she hadn't talked to me about it, but apparently left school early to drive to Carlisle. In that respect, of course, I wondered what was going on and it gave me a little stab in my heart.

My daughter didn't trust me enough to come to me.

On the other hand, if Leah was seriously ill, I'm sure Edward wouldn't have greeted me so calmly, but would have sent me to her right away, and probably picked me up at home as well so I could get here faster.

So, with only nervous - rather than panicked - strides, I went upstairs.

Leah sat cross-legged on the stretcher. She appeared anxious.

I asked myself for the reason.

Fear of my reaction, whatever she was going to tell me, or fear of what Carlisle might have already told her.

"Hello, Leah," I said quietly and sat down with her.

"Mom ... You must be wondering why I'm here," Leah stated.

I affirmed.

"Please, don't think that because I went to Carlisle first that I don't have confidence in you. Because that's not actually how it is."

"Actually?" I asked.

She nodded shyly.

She took something out from behind her back and put it between us.

Two pregnancy tests.

I held my breath.

"You know what this is," she asked to be sure.

She knew that I had never needed such a test before. But honestly! However, I had not grown up in the last century, where these tests did not exist.

Therefore, I nodded affirmatively. Still holding my breath.

"I'm not pregnant," she said immediately, and I kept breathing.

Would I have heaped accusations on her, accused her, and shouted if she was? ... I don't think so. Leah was not stupid and knew that there was more to prevent than just a child.

"Before I wanted to talk to you, I wanted to be sure first, so I picked one of these up on the way home at noon today ..." she said endeavored calmly, pausing for a little while, but during which Leah lost her composure.

I immediately stood up and took her in my arms.

Desperate and frantic, she then followed up, "But look at it, Mom."

She literally pressed the instructions for use into my hands.

Only now did I realize what seemed to be really bothering Leah. There should be one strip to see if one was not pregnant and if they were, then two. But there was absolutely nothing to see on these two tests.

"I thought maybe I had done something wrong and then I got the second one. But it just said the same thing ... That's when I got the idea to drive to Carlisle ... Please, don't be mad at me!"

She cried bitterly and now I could understand her fear.

"I'm not mad at all, Leah. I might be a wee bit disappointed that you didn't come to me right away. But with nothing more than a mere suspicion, I probably wouldn't have said anything to anyone either ..."

Reassuringly, I continued whispering and stroking over her back. For some time, I cradled my baby.

"I'm guessing you didn't get your period and that's why you thought you were pregnant," I surmised.

She nodded, suppressing more tears, which she didn't particularly succeed in doing.

"Something like that can happen ... There can be many reasons for that ... Has Carlisle already said something about it? Or about the strange result of the tests?" I asked after a while.

"He didn't really say anything else about the tests. But he thinks we should look for the reason for the delay," Leah raised her head again.

There was a soft knock at the door.

Edward came in and sat with us.

Leah asked if he had been listening, which of course he had.

We comforted our little girl until the tears finally faded away.

She appeared more composed again and wiped away the last tears.

Edward then showed me Leah's blood results, which I could make some sense of. As far as my knowledge of biology was concerned, the values looked good. He checked the tests results again himself.

Edward and I agreed with Carlisle. The absence could have been due to natural causes.

For my children - but also for me - the past six weeks had been quite exciting. Vampires in our town, wolves ... which they had become, Edward and I, the visit from La Push, the vampire attack. A lot of things came together.

But that was not necessarily the reason. And what worried both me and Edward were the results of the pregnancy tests. In general, there could be a wolfish reason for this, but I didn't know that I had ever heard of it. The pack had been mostly boys, after all, and I had never been good enough friends with Leah Clearwater for her to tell me such a thing.

"It's your choice who you get checked out by," Edward then said, and I nodded in affirmation.

I had sent her to a female doctor in the past, not without merit. As a young girl - she had just been thirteen - I wasn't sure whether a man might not have made her uncomfortable.

"Carlisle is probably the best doctor there is and that goes for any specialty in medicine, but he's a man first and your grandfather second. He understands if you would rather go to your female doctor."

Leah stood up from the stretcher and paced the room indecisively. At some point, Leah's head lit like a tomato and Edward smirked. He walked up to her and put a hand to her cheek, chuckling.

"You look as adorable as your mother," he gave her a kiss on the forehead, but then became more measured again, "I told you earlier how seriously Carlisle takes his confidentiality. And I would disappear so long."

Ahh ...! That was why Leah had blushed so much. She thought Edward would watch the examination through Carlisle's eyes. Okay. That would be embarrassing even for me, although by now Edward probably - well, let's say pretty sure! - knew my body better than I did. Purely anatomically, at least. Wow ... Now I was blushing for sure. The way Edward looked, I was right.

"With all we've already done together, you could stop blushing by now!" he whispered, barely audible, right by my ear.

Great. This statement did not necessarily now help my face to get back a normal color tone.

My cell phone briefly distracted me from the heat of my cheeks.

Did I miss something or why is no one home when there is supposed to be dinner?

Jake!

"Oops ..." I just said and wrote back that I would cook here.

"Does Jake miss his family tremendously?" asked Edward with a smile. "Or he's starving painfully right now?" he added.

Leah chuckled, but then said she wanted Carlisle to check her out.

I asked if I should stay with her. But she literally told me that she wasn't a little girl anymore. She could manage on her own.

Ouch!

Esmé had offered to cook. She knew them both well enough and knew that they were pretty much always hungry.

But Edward was going to disappear during the checkup anyway. So I went over to our house here with Edward and started cooking. Meanwhile, there was enough food here to conjure up a spontaneous dinner.

Spaghetti Bolognese. The minced meat was defrosting in the microwave, while I chopped onions.

Edward stood right behind me and guided my hands.

Actually, he cut more than I.

"What do you think? About Leah, I mean," I asked.

"I don't know. I'm reassured that she agreed to Carlisle. After all, the lack of periods could also be of wolfish origin," he said concentrated.

I nodded.

I had also already thought of that.

"What would you have said if she really was pregnant?"

"I don't know. On the one hand, I would think that I didn't educate her enough or she just ignored or maybe forgot what I said. On the other hand, I was only two years older myself."

"How long did it take you to tell Renée or Charlie?"

"I didn't have to tell them," I reminded myself at it. It then occurred to me that I had never told Edward about it. Generally, I had talked with him only a little about this dark time. The twins had shown him some things in the schoolyard, but also only what they themselves had learned from the other wolves.

I turned to him and put my arms around his waist.

"When I found out about my pregnancy, I was a mental wreck ... I tried to jump off a bridge ..."

Edward dropped the knife in shock and the gold in his eyes froze. But he seemed to think about my words, while his arms wrapped around me.

"Jake showed me a memory of Sam ... You were lying in the hospital and said goodbye to Jacob and me," he mused sadly.

"You were gone and Jacob was dead. I saw no reason to live anymore."

"But what was going on with the twins? Weren't you thinking about them at that moment?"

"I didn't know about them. The world around me didn't interest me. Only when I came to afterwards in the hospital, where Charlie and Sam had visited me without me noticing, did I find out I was pregnant. And by then I was already six months along ... Only with this news did I have the will to live again and it never left me again," I explained calmly. "And it will not as long as you are with me!" I added and kissed his cold sensitive lips. It all felt so far away that it didn't touch me anymore. My angel was here. Nothing would throw me off track in such a way that this thought would come to me again.

I smiled and slowly equanimous calm also returned to my angel's face. There was a knock - or better - a scratching at the door and Edward smirked again.

"One of our pets is here," he said, walking to the front door.

Jake stood in front of the door as a wolf and growled angrily at Edward.

'Pet' was something Jake liked to hear as much as 'dog'.

I laughed and was growled at as well, but Jake ran right on into the guest room. I turned my attention back to dinner and put on the spaghetti.

"Was Leah Clearwater actually the only female wolf?" Edward resumed our original topic.

"As far as I know, yes," I replied, but had an idea in the process.

I pressed the plate of mince into Edward's hand and went to the back of the fireplace room with my cell phone.

My favorite room in Edward's house. Already many evenings we had snuggled here on the comfortable lounger or read or duelled hard and mercilessly on the chessboard. That I usually drew the short straw was unfortunately normal.

"Hey, Charlie ..." I greeted my dad.

After the usual short chat, Charlie already wanted to say goodbye.

Jake had appeared intermediately dressed, waved at me through the glass door, and disappeared into the kitchen to Edward.

Talking to Charlie on the phone was always easy, but today I still asked for Sue, my stepmom.

She was the mother of Leah Clearwater. If it was of wolfish origin that Leah did not get her period, then the deceased Leah might well have turned to her mother, who was a trained nurse.

I heard through the phone as Sue seemed to move away from the TV and asked how the kids were doing. And then she asked about Edward.

Well, she was best informed, I thought to myself.

I answered quickly and then told her about Leah in short form.

"Yes, Leah had that too. We could only assume that time that it was because of the wolf. But if your Leah has the same problem now, we can be sure in this regard," Sue seemed reassured by that.

I, however, was not yet.

"But if Leah doesn't have a cycle now, doesn't that mean she'll never have children?" I continued.

"It doesn't have to be that way, Bella. Wolves don't change as long as they phase regularly. But when they stop doing that, they're actually normal people again. We now know that this is really the case. If they get hurt, they need a doctor. It was hard to get Sam and Paul to understand that ... But I think the same will be true for Leah."

"But you're not sure?"

"What's sure in this world?" meant Sue encouragingly.

Meanwhile, Edward sat with me and signified that he too wanted to speak with Sue.

"Sue, Edward would like to talk to you," I said hesitantly. I didn't know what Sue's attitude would be, even if she had politely asked about Edward earlier.

"I'd love to," she immediately said, though.

Somewhat flabbergasted, I handed the cell phone over.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Swan ... Thank you, good ... I heard that you are a nurse ... As I'm sure you've already heard, my father is a doctor ... That' s good to hear ... That would perhaps be a real help for my father to get more detailed information in this regard ... That's really impressive! ... May I ask you one more favor, Sue? ..."

I paused.

When had they changed from Mrs. Swan to Sue? I smiled. Sue was just as uncomplicated as Charlie, but far more attentive.

"... I hid something in Bella's bedroom years ago ... Under one of the wooden floorboards ... The one that squeaks so annoyingly ... Anything please ... I really thank you so much! ... Maybe I'll come visit when Charlie's not around ... Bye!" he said in a charming tone of voice and hung up. "You'll get the pictures of us back," he smiled at me.

I put my arms around his neck and kissed him gratefully.

I hadn't even thought that I could ask Sue to send them to me. "And what else?" I asked, though. It had been about something else, apparently.

"Carlisle made the same painkiller for Seth that he made for Leah and Jake. And it works. Furthermore, she's sending us blood samples from all the wolves. Also, from herself and Billy. In addition, apparently extensive notes, which she has made herself. Handwritten. She is at war with computers. Sue has resolved to compile everything worth knowing in a book, so that future wolves do not have to fall back only on legends and assumptions. In case generations are skipped again," Edward explained to me as we headed back to the kitchen and Edward relieved Jake at the stove.

Jake had not yet greeted me appropriately, but now came over and sat next to me at the small kitchen bar.

"What about Leah?" Jake immediately asked.

"Just a small irregularity that Carlisle is getting to the bottom of," Edward told him, which of course was too little information for Jake. "Female issues," Edward added by way of explanation, which Jake could already relate to much more.

I smirked as Jake contorted his face.

Thank you for reading!